


UNA VOLTA CHAI AVRAI

by vanhunks



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/M, picture prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 07:04:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10238585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanhunks/pseuds/vanhunks
Summary: Voyager's homecoming. On route to Earth, Kathryn visits an old friend for the last time.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This story was entered in the VAMB Winter Picture Prose contest.
> 
> My thanks to Mary for the betareading!
> 
> Voyager and its characters to not belong to me. They do make fine subjects for my own little vignette.

* * *

This picture prompt.

* * *

 

Kathryn stepped into the workshop, as always drawn to the workbenches laden with the Maestro's inventions, those completed and those unfinished. Against the ceiling the wingspan of a hawk perched, its supporting brackets invisible so that it appeared as if the hawk had taken flight. On an easel rested an early sketch of _A man in red chalk._

Her heart felt heavy as she gazed around the workshop, at all the familiar creations she'd seen over the years. Her eyes rested on her own work bench in the corner which Maestro Da Vinci had grudgingly allowed her to use. There she'd dabbled with her own crafts, using sixteenth century tools.

This was her refuge, the place that provided solace in all those times and hours when she needed to escape the burden of duty and cross of command that had weighed heavier than she had ever been prepared for. Here, for a brief while at least, she could find herself, reflect again on why she had taken to flight, to dwell amongst the stars, to assure herself once more that she had made the right decisions.

Sighing, she picked up a jar containing brushes, the smell of paint still on them, memories of painting in this room swamping her. Then she put the jar down, her eyes sweeping the room once more. A great window filled an entire wall, its mullions ornately carved. Rays of sunlight touched the benches, the array of implements appearing like artefacts in a tomb. But the room was no tomb, rather it celebrated its owner's life and life's work. Sighing, she turned to gaze at the hawk that looked like it would soon fly into the sun.

"Your heart is heavy, Catarina," the voice of Maestro Da Vinci rose up behind her. She swung round, relieved to see the smiling, bearded inventor and painter.

The old man pulled her into a gentle embrace. Over the years his programme had adapted. Now he could sense the disquiet in her. She stood away from him, though not leaving his embrace. Smiling today was difficult, even though she had every reason to be happy.

"We are home, Maestro."

"Home in America?"

"Yes, although we are still on our ship," she said by way of clarification.

"Sadness lurks in your eyes. They do not smile, yet you tell me you have reached your home." 

Da Vinci ambled to an easel on which rested the first stirrings of what would become _La Bella Principessa_  on vellum. He picked up a piece of dark red chalk and touched up an area on the headgear and upper arm. Then he glanced up at Kathryn, waiting for a response.

How could she answer him and not want to die from the aching sorrow inside her? It wasn't working, she thought, coming to the workshop to find peace, trying to centre herself. There was no peace. Kathryn swung away from him, from the _Principessa_ that was ranked as a great, if at times controversial, work of art, and headed for the door of the holodeck.

"Catarina!"

She stopped as she reached the entrance. One step and she would be in Voyager's corridor, back to reality. Slowly Kathryn turned. Maestro Da Vinci held out his hand to her, beckoning her closer.

"I know why you hurt, my daughter."

Once, she'd told him about her first officer, about her feelings for him, how difficult it was to be a leader and not divert from her path, how she could not yield to the call of her heart.

"It will not leave me, Maestro, this ache inside me. It eats away at me. I fear my resolve to remain strong is crumbling. How can I fix it? How?"

"You will be surprised how resilient the human heart can be, my child, it will - "

"Take time?"

"That too. But perhaps, all is not lost. You have taught me that yourself, dear Catarina. You told me not to give up on everything I left incomplete. Once I too despaired of never regaining all that was creative in me. Then came my feisty young apprentice in whose eyes I saw the same desire to dream of flight!"

"I have lost everything, Maestro," she whispered.

Da Vinci smoothed his silvery beard thoughtfully. He touched the sextant, then studied other tools and implements, lifting a drawing of an arm, then putting it down.

"And you think I know the answer to your heart? Catarina, my child, where is the fight that I know is in you?"

"He has taken another…" she said, moving towards the great window that covered almost the entire wall of the workshop. "He could not wait. I don't blame him."

"Home will be empty."

"Yes."

She felt his hand on her shoulder.

"Look there, Catarina, at the sky and the great sun that sweeps the horizon in golden hues! Would that I had a brush and a hand that could paint the heavens like that!"

And Kathryn looked at the light of the setting sun, clouds that appeared as silhouettes and its rays reaching towards Earth. She heard Leonardo say, "Florence could not look more beautiful than this time of the day, leaving light, preparing to host the moon later…"  It was beautiful, so beautiful that the dull throbbing in her heart settled, offering a little relief.

"I was up there, Maestro, amongst the stars. I'm not sure that's where I wish to stay. I put my feet down and walk the land, alone."

"Never alone," Da Vinci said. "He will come to you because you are of the same heart."

"You sound so convinced. I wish I could believe that."

Leonardo swung his arm in a wide sweep of the sky, as if he held an invisible brush and painted the heavens.

"Look, Catarina," he said, pointing to the sky. "You dreamed of flying from your earliest childhood, is it not so?" When she nodded, he continued, his voice asserting. "And then you learned to fly, to ascend to all those heavenly bodies and touch each one. It became you and you - you loved it with all your heart! Your curiosity is insatiable because you need to see what is out there, to tell the world about it, to know what it is to know!"

"You are so right, Maestro," she said as she gazed at the setting sun. It seemed to her that he too couldn't take his eyes off  a scene of such magnificence. His head moved as if he notated a song she could not hear.

"And then," he said suddenly, "you walk on the ground and you look at the sky and you think to yourself, 'I have been there.' You begin to wonder whether that is your home after all, because every time you walk on the ground, you desire to return. It is your lifeblood, Catarina. You will decide to go because you cannot endure to be away from it too long."

Her throat felt thick with unshed tears. Was Leonardo right? Could she assuage her longing for her first officer by flying to the stars again? Her home, after all? To forget that another would walk his paths with him?

How was it then that she felt no better than when she entered the workshop?

"And he will take you there on his wings."

"Who?"

"He who is of the same heart. Like you, his feet walk the earth but the stars feed his sense of wonder and of flight. Do not despair. Wait and you will see."

"Thank you, Maestro Da Vinci. Those are wise words indeed."

Kathryn stepped away from the window and moved to the middle of the room, leaving the incredible sunset. Da Vinci remained at the window still in deep thought. It was time to let go of the great inventor.

"Computer, delete holodeck character."

Only the inanimate objects remained in the holodeck. The workbenches with their artefacts, art works, old familiar friends to say goodbye to. She wanted to inhale the atmosphere for the last time.

"Hello, Kathryn."

She swung round. A familiar face.

"Chakotay?"

" _Una volta che avrai_ \- " he started, his voice strong, mellow, loving.

"What…?"

"Once you have learned to fly, you walk on the ground looking at the sky because it is there that you have been and there will want to return."

"You heard?" she said, her voice hardly above a whisper.

She felt so small looking up at him. Her heart raced maddeningly as Chakotay took her hands in his, her wavering hands on which rested the spectre of a? another, that stilled in the peace that flowed from him to her. Could she believe the Maestro's words? Could she? His hands were warm, inviting, comforting.

"Part of it," he replied, his dimpled smile almost her undoing.

"Why - ?"

_Join me on my new journey, please. I will walk beside you forever…_

That became her prayer as Chakotay pulled her closer so that her head could rest against his shoulder as she sagged against him.

"Where I wish to go, Kathryn, my love, I cannot take a woman-child, one who will never understand my depths the way you do."

They remained silent for a few seconds before Chakotay's voice breathed into her hair the words of earlier.

"Where I decide to be with you forever."

_I am home, she thought with wonder. I am home…_

************

 

END

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The title and first lines from the opening words in Italian of Christopher Tin's song, "Sogno di Volare." [Dream of Flying]. The song features  as the theme in the game "Civilization VI" by Sid Meier.
> 
>  Original quote by Leonardo Da Vinci


End file.
